Chronicles of Azkaban
by DawningStar
Summary: Thoughts of the inhabitants of Azkaban... Not so much a single story as a collection of short, semi-connected pieces, each from a different point of view. Complete. PG for being really depressing.
1. Forgotten Assistance

Chronicles of Azkaban

Chronicles of Azkaban   
Forgotten Assistance   
by [DawningStar][1]

  
  


Cold, dark-cold. Quiet mostly except for the screams...but they fade, slowly. And metal, the faint scrape of metal, and the air heavy with despair. 

Was it always like this? I forget... 

Don't try to remember. Easier that way. Forget...sit and rock, back and forth, back and forth. 

What was my name? Dara, Dara...no matter. No name, not anymore. 

Push long tangled hair away, out of my face, look out of my cell. Black-robed figures glide through narrow passageways, I feel their chill, and memories start to surge, but I don't remember anymore. What did I do, to be put here? I don't remember...I don't think I'm supposed to be here. I think they're hiding something. 

Don't think. Back and forth. Back and forth. No thoughts, only the motion. 

Across the hall the tall man sleeps, a sleep haunted by nightmares--_Hogwarts,_ he mutters, _he's at Hogwarts_. Sleep isn't restful here, I'd give it up entirely if I could. I cannot remember my own past but as I sleep I seem to share the nightmares of those around me... 

The prisoner in the cell across the hall is different from most, I think. Clearer somehow, more sane, perhaps. 

He wakes. How long has it been? I don't know, doesn't matter. He's Named still, one of the few who are, Sirius Black. He says again that he is innocent, that it was not him. I believe him, and say so. There is no reason to lie; whether or not he is innocent, they will never let him out, and he knows it. Long-time prisoner, that one, the dog-star, the black dog. I was here when they brought him in. I have been here forever, I think. 

He turns into a dog now. I have seen it before, and I wonder if that perhaps is the difference, why he is sane though hollow-eyed and we are not. I know well enough I've gone mad. 

There was an inspection of the prison and they took me to a different part while it was done, deep, deep below, in tunnels never used even by the dementors. They were hiding me, I think, hiding me from the Ministry of Magic. 

Don't think. Back and forth. 

They bring food and I tight-close my eyes, rocking faster. They come to me first and open the door and slip the small bowl in. I might run if they did not stand there...I cannot bring myself to stand, to move. The air is colder now, icy stone. Then they have moved on. 

I open my eyes. Something is going to happen, I feel it in the way the air presses down...they open the door across the hall, blind to Sirius's form, and begin to place the food down within. 

Then an explosion of movement! The black-dog rushes through the narrow opening, and I know well how hard it is to move against dementors. He drags himself past them, and they turn, confused, then begin to glide swiftly after. I pick up the food they bring and throw it. It strikes the hood of the first one, and they pause, turning to find me, but I have closed my eyes and am rocking, rocking again. No emotions. They have drained me long ago, and now they cannot see what I have done. 

I see the black-dog now, hear his padded feet far away. Up he climbs, up the stairways, then to the top, and I feel a breath of fresh air. A clean cold, a real cold, blowing away the dementor chill for an instant, and I know what he is doing. There is no way down but one. 

A black speck falling, feather-light it seems, striking water and surfacing. I cannot see. I wish him luck, the black-dog, the dog-star. Shore is not too far, not too far to swim for freedom, and the seawater can only be a real-cold, nothing compared to the dementors. 

He will not remember me, and there is nothing he could do if he did. Still I hope he remains free. Perhaps he can convince others of his innocence. Perhaps he will find the godson he has spoken of, young Harry Potter. 

I rock, back and forth, back and forth, and for the first time, I feel hope. The food is spilled in the hallway. A pity. For once I might be able to eat more than a bite or two. 

A dementor passes. Hope, I find, seems not to be an emotion, for I still have it. 

Perhaps it is only my madness, but the cell seems somehow warmer... 

   [1]: mailto:dawn@ccaonline.com



	2. Dementor's Thought

Chronicles of Azkaban

Chronicles of Azkaban   
Dementor's Thought   
by [DawningStar][1]

I glide silently through the narrow corridors carved deep into the rock, passing cage after cage. The occupants draw back as I pass, curling as far away from me as possible in futile instinct. I cannot see them, only feel the faint tinges of emotion left to them. 

Behind me they shiver in a chill that is the absence of emotion. Only fear is still present in their minds, what traces of happiness and hope they had managed now mine. I savor them for the brief time they last, before they subside into my own emotionlessness. I must move on constantly, the prisoners too drained to provide enough to live on. 

They fear me, hate me. And why should they not? I am anathema to them, cold terror and black fear, essence of all humans strive to avoid. I should not blame them for their nature, should not blame them for the emotions they are capable of and I am not. 

I cannot hate them, being incapable of such a feeling. In the rare times I have found emotion enough to think as they might, I find I envy them their gift, their priceless ability to feel which they think so little of. 

Through memories and absorbed emotions I know them each, every one much the same as the next by now, only their strength of mind setting them apart. Most give up quickly, their scent/taste fading to a dull black, barely aware of what happens around them. They die quickly, no longer bothering to eat. Others, the proud ones, the green ones, they last longer, slowly slipping into red-black madness. And a few... 

Two. Two in all Azkaban's history, the countless years since we began to guard this place. The rare-color, the green-blue scent/taste, living despite despair, hovering on the brink of madness but never quite falling. The first so long ago even we cannot remember the sense clearly...the second, here now, Sirius Black. He is Named, one of the few we allow to remember that much at least, allowed because we think of them that way, by name and not by description. 

I am not far from his cell now, I note, from the feel. He changes, sometimes, slips into a strange blue-red that we have never seen before, difficult to sense. We worried, the first time it happened, that we had been mistaken, but he changed back before long, still green-blue. He despairs, like the rest; yet some determination keeps him alive. 

If it were possible, we might be glad he is a top-security prisoner. It means we pass often, each taking a turn, and afterward comparing feelings, saved in memory. It will be my turn to pass him soon. 

I head that way now, a few gathered emotions combining to form a faint sense of anticipation. Admiration, almost, for his bravery. Twelve years, it has been, and still he remains sane. 

Perhaps, his feeling holds the key to our own freedom. Something he has and we do not... 

It is a dream, a luxury we cannot afford. But somehow hope lasts the longest of our stolen emotions, the easiest to translate to ourselves. An irony perhaps, that this impossible dream of change is the one thing we can feel. 

I sense another dementor, dark, dark colors fading quickly below a sheen of black. Sirius Black's emotions, unmistakable and fresh. But there is something strange about them, something not right...a feeling never felt except perhaps when a prisoner is released. The half-giant felt somewhat like this as they led him out, a rare few others. But still not quite the same. Gold, yes, golden-yellow almost-joy, but all overlaid with despairing black, the silver of hope and the red-brown of anger. Anger most of all. Even I can taste it, far off as I am. I think perhaps all of us feel that now, absorbing the strangely strong emotion. 

I reach out to a closer dementor, a silent question in my sense. _He is escaping,_ the other replies, lack of knowledge making itself plain. 

No one escapes from Azkaban. Never, never since the prison was founded had a prisoner ventured even to try. And for one to run, to find the strength of mind to move against us after twelve years of draining... 

It is hard to pin down the sense of his mind, blue-red at the moment, hard to find just where he is. The emotions are broadcast throughout the tunnels with such strength I would think even the other prisoners might feel it, but the location is unknown. I glide swiftly in his general direction, hoping to reach him before he escapes entirely. That he will I have no doubt. He almost deserves to, just for trying. 

And then the sense is gone, too far away in an instant to feel more than a faint tinge. _He is in the ocean,_ another dementor reports. _Swimming to shore._

I turn, gliding back down, to the main doors of Azkaban. I will report it to the one human not here as a prisoner, the liaison, they call him. 

I reach the little house carved into the outside of the thick walls, and he comes outside, sense dark with fear. I hold back, trying not to drain his memories, but even so I know he feels a chill. "What is it?" he asks apprehensively. 

I cannot answer in words. I glide forward and point to the small map of the cells, to Sirius Black's cell, and then to the open ocean. 

"He escaped?" the human asks, fear evident even in his voice. He runs inside again. It is not long before he returns, and I can feel him trying to calm himself. "I've told the Minister of Magic," he says. "He'll be here shortly, no doubt, he'll want to know how it happened..." He shakes his head. "I never thought...Black, free!" He is upset, amazed, I can tell without even trying. 

Another human sense appears suddenly, one I recognize as Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic. I hold back from his feelings in respect for his position, though how he got it I do not know. Even the humans ought to see the green-orange of his mind, the weakest sense. He would be utterly black inside a week, were he a prisoner here. He comes forward to speak quietly with the caretaker, then turns to me. "You'll find him, of course?" he demands. 

I nod. I still feel strangely full of emotion, of anger. I relish the feeling. But Fudge flinches back as he somehow notices it. "I--I'll get permission for you to leave here--to look for him," he stammers. 

I turn and go back within the stone prison. To leave here, to be out among undrained humans...perhaps we will find another green-blue mind, perhaps we will find a way to feel on our own. Anger turns to a gentle gold happiness, to silver hope. 

Another silvery sense is not far away. I head toward it, curious. It comes from the cell near Sirius Black's. The occupant of that cell has lived here for nearly fifty years now...our mistake. Once she was silver-green, a child, and we thought that she might be our chance to feel by ourselves... 

Her mind is reddened with madness now, with insanity, but a strange silver-blue hope lightens it. I touch it gingerly. But it is not hope for herself, not hope to escape or anything else...it is hope for another, for Sirius Black. 

I draw back from it. I cannot touch that emotion. Hope lasts too long, and we will soon be ordered to hunt down the escaped Black, probably to use the Dementor's Kiss--to snuff out forever that green-blue mind. I cannot afford to feel sympathy toward him. Not any more. 

   [1]: mailto:dawn@ccaonline.com



	3. Caretaker's Cares

Chronicles of Azkaban

Chronicles of Azkaban   
Caretaker's Cares   
by [DawningStar][1]

I stir the fire, sighing as the sparks leap up. It is terribly cold in my little room, even with the bright fire; though the dementors keep away for the most part, their chill permeates the entire fortress. Wind sweeps over the fortress, its moans a voice for those who can cry no more, silent in their cells. I shudder slightly. 

I avoid entering the prison itself as much as I can, but part of my job includes making sure they receive enough food and water--for all the good it does, when so many refuse to eat. The sight of the unmoving, nearly lifeless prisoners haunts my dreams...Death Eaters, murderers, dark wizards, but no one deserves that. Better perhaps to have killed them and gotten it over with, rather than this endless nothingness. 

_What did I do to deserve this?_ I wonder for the hundredth time. But I know, all too well. Nothing. 

While the Ministry fought the Dark Lord, while wizards up and down the country were in danger, while Death Eaters murdered magical and Muggle alike, I did nothing. A tiny post in the Law Enforcement office, just a secretary, but when all my colleagues were risking their necks, I was too afraid to leave my safe office. And they sent me to Azkaban. 

Oh, there was never any suspicion I might be a Death Eater. The notion never crossed their minds. I was too polite--too much of a coward. So they very politely promoted me to this place. 

I snort faintly. It is almost ironic. For cowardice, I am assigned the most avoided, most feared job of the Ministry--liaison to Azkaban. Caretaker. Overseer. I know the slang names for it in the normal offices, I laughed at them with the rest: official un-prisoner, sane lunatic, voice of the dementors. I wonder sometimes how long it will be before I go insane from the contacts. This job doesn't have a good track record; three out of four holders of the office have ended up paranoid and shuddering for the rest of their lives. The fourth is in St. Mungo's. 

Sighing again, I shiver slightly and add another log to the already blazing fire. I look around the small room to be sure everything is in place; bed neatly made, the few pictures neatly hung on the wall (sleeping in their frames), fire stoked up, the small kitchen spotlessly clean. It is early as yet, barely late afternoon, but I sleep as much as I can. Even nightmares are better than the clammy cold of the dementors. 

Just then the chill intensifies, and I shudder in apprehension. One of them is coming to see me. I wonder why briefly, as they usually stay in their sections, with the prisoners, possibly to spare themselves the temptation of draining me. It isn't time for an inspection--one was recently conducted, the Minister of Magic himself coming out--and I worry that perhaps something has gone wrong. Pulling on a thick cloak and walking reluctantly outside, I glance at the large map on one wall in the hope that it will tell me something, but I have never been able to read its symbols. I think perhaps they are geared for the dementors. 

Sure enough, a tall black figure comes toward me with that eerily silent movement. I pull the cloak more tightly around myself, for all the good it does. "What is it?" I ask. 

The dementor comes nearer yet, and raises one dead gray hand to point at the map. I look closer, and gasp slightly. The cell it indicates is labeled _Sirius Black_, the notorious murderer. The dementor gestures to the surrounding waves. 

"He _escaped_?" I gasp, and run back inside, grabbing a handful of powder from a jar and throwing it into the fire. I have to report this to the Minister. 

For an instant an odd feeling of hope steals into my mind. Maybe, with this failure, I'll be dismissed from my post... 

No, that's too much to hope for. "Cornelius Fudge," I call into the flames, wondering how on earth Black escaped. He was a top-security prisoner, too! And even I, not a prisoner at all, somehow can't manage a transfer away from here. 

For one instant, before the Minister of Magic appears in the flames, I feel faintly envious. 

   [1]: mailto:dawn@ccaonline.com



	4. Broken Promise

Chronicles of Azkaban

Chronicles of Azkaban   
Broken Promise   
by [DawningStar][1]

_You promised,_ I chant silently. _You promised._

The world is made of dull stone and dark thoughts, cold voiceless whispers, the black fear-shadows and the prisoners clad all in colorless ragged gray... 

I shudder, clutching at my robes, trying to hold in what shreds of heat I can. A futile effort; this cold is not mere physical chill, but a slow, silent theft of the warmth of the soul. Memories twist in my mind, merging and separating--_are these my memories?_--I cannot remember... 

--outside the bars the fear-shadow passes, passes in draft of icy terror, and I close my eyes against the fear of memories, and _it was all my fault..._

--screams of those I killed, cut off by green light and rushing death, and the empty faces accusing me-- 

--the hands, hands clutching my robes, and I turn aside, I do not dare look-- 

--and I don't even know their names, I don't know who I left, would it be easier if I did? easier if the faces had names, had voices to speak with, if they screamed again, if they made me scream for what I did, I deserve it... 

And _he_ appears in my memories, icy voice freezing my bones, _You are too soft,_ he says, and I scream, and they laugh, his faithful servants, and I laughed with them, when it was someone else screaming...it was they who told me first, brought me in, they said, they said I would be powerful, they said those we killed were worthless, they said _he_ would protect us, they lied, they _lied_, nothing is worth this! 

--guilt? is this guilt I feel? he would point his wand at me if he knew I felt guilt, if he knew, if he came I would be glad to suffer Cruciatus just to have an end to this-- 

--but they lied, they said those lives were worthless and now they haunt me so, and _he_ lied, he lied, he will never come for me-- 

--is this what they feel, the shadows? I should pity them, but I have no pity, no emotion left but despair black as the fear-shadows themselves and the fleeting other-thoughts... 

...other, other, not me, that I know--perhaps that is all I know--who was I once? a dozen past memories flicker in my mind as the fear-shadows move, touch my mind, finding nothing move on, but leaving behind images drained of context and feeling-- 

--and for a moment, I am myself again. 

How long has it been this time? no way to know. It happens, I get lost in memory, and forget who and where I am... 

Sometimes I think I remember things that I never experienced, I remember myself from other views, but then that's just the dementors. I'm going insane, if I'm not already. Everyone in Azkaban goes insane. 

There is a bowl before me. Food. The thought of eating makes my stomach twist uncomfortably, but I force a mouthful down, and then another. 

Everyone does something, something to delay the onset of insanity. There is a woman, a few cells down, who rubs a rock on the bars of her cage. Not trying to escape, not really--who could think of escaping? it's hopeless--but just scraping, scraping, just to make some noise. Sometimes it helps, the repetitive motion or sound, and sometimes it doesn't. The ones who make the most noise, screaming or kicking the walls or beating the cage bars, they go insane the fastest, and become utterly quiet. There was a boy--no! best not to think of that. 

But everyone does something of the sort. My own attempt is my silent chant, silent to avoid attracting the dementors' attention... 

The scraping down the way stops. Slowly, I drag my head up to look. I don't know her, I cannot see her face, have never heard her name, but she is a rare constant in my world of cold stone and shifting memories. I find myself hoping she has not succumbed, will not stop eating and starve. 

_Hope?_ The dementors must be very distracted indeed to allow me such a luxury. Perhaps the scraper noticed before I did. I look for a possible source, but I can see nothing in the few feet of corridor visible from my cage, the cells across from me currently empty. 

Would a new prisoner account for it, someone not yet drained? Surely there have been new prisoners brought before, and I have never felt this...is it possible someone is actually _escaping_? 

No, of course not. Escape is far beyond reach...and already I feel despair settling back down around me. 

A few cells down the scraping begins again, slower, heavier. I stare at the cold stone wall once more and my mind repeats soundlessly _he promised he promised he promised...he'll free me..._

But I no longer believe it. 

   [1]: mailto:dawn@ccaonline.com



	5. Still Dreaming

Chronicles of Azkaban 

Chronicles of Azkaban   
Still Dreaming   
by DawningStar

Dreams travel in Azkaban. 

It's a strange thing, that, one I've never understood or even tried to. It simply is. If anyone manages to dream something through the fog of the dementors, the same dream will eventually be spread around the entire prison. You can tell it's not yours from the viewpoint, and of course there are no emotions in it, not even the vague ones present in a dream originating with you. 

We might be imagining it, of course. I say _we_ because the shared dreams give me some minor sense of community, though perhaps I am the only one to notice--or it may all be in my own head. 

Because I'm insane, you know. I hide it well, I think, better than the man in the next hallway who talks to the moss on the wall when he is not pounding his head against it, or even the woman who spends her time scraping away at the cell bars. I just dream. 

Sometimes there are strange dreams, dreams that seem more real than my reality of cold stone and metal bars; they carry emotion but they are not mine. I talk to the Dreamer, in them, the girl who sends the dream. Every once in a while she responds. 

I'll never know how it happened, I suppose. _She_ doesn't know, and if anyone knows she should. Unless of course she's a figment of my overactive imagination, in which case it's only natural she doesn't know anything I don't... 

But I find that hard to believe. How could I imagine someone like her, here? She feels too much, she is far too happy to be me, to be anyone who's trapped in this prison. 

I think she dreams of Azkaban, knows my dreams and those of the others, but I seem to be the only one who dreams of her. Someone who was in Azkaban once, perhaps? Or something else. I don't know. Maybe it is only my insanity. But then she has told me that she fears I am only her dream, too. 

And those dreams are not the strangest. There are others, black dreams with faint hints of color, dreams of an emotionlessness even worse than ours, dreams that can only come from the dementors. I could find myself feeling sorry for them if they did not steal the emotion as fast as it sparks. 

I know the prisoners now, the inhabitants of Azkaban, at least as well as they know themselves. My own identity has become lost somehow under theirs...Dara, who shouldn't be here at all, insane but still hoping...Sirius Black, another innocent, whose dreams are clouded from me, who has managed somehow to stay sane...the caretaker, who is not as sane as he thinks...Death Eaters. Nameless, burdened with guilt or still clinging to their fallen leader, insane. Like me. Was I one of them once? Probably. Who can tell, now? Conflicting thoughts have buried whoever I was. If Voldemort returns as some still believe, perhaps I will learn my name. More likely I won't care. They can leave me here with the dementors--and the dreams. 

When the boy in the next cell vanished, I knew. The dementors knew, but they didn't care. Or not so much that as that they preferred the newcomer. She--from what I saw she looked the same as the boy but the dementors knew--she was gentler, more emotional. And neither would have lasted long. She was dying when they took her outside. 

But I still dream her dreams, darker now. One of the dementors claimed her soul, I know, though I have no proof but my dreams. They combine when they do that, a strange mixture of human emotion and dementor despair, easily distinguished in dream. 

I wonder if the dementors know of my dreams. Somehow I don't think they do. Perhaps the Dreamer shields me somehow. Being outside, they cannot touch her or her emotions. Shared, the despair becomes less...I could tell the dementors this; it might answer their long search. But they would not listen anyway. 

Or perhaps I've made the whole thing up. It doesn't seem to matter. Either way, the dreams are my defense against darkness, whether they hold reality or not. 

And I do not dare risk losing them. 


End file.
